Tag: American Immigration Council

JHISN Newsletter 07/25/2026

Posted on July 25, 2026 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

We often struggle to decide what stories to write for the newsletter: how to choose from the cascade of immigration news; what will promote solidarity without softening the brutal reality of what is happening in the US. For this newsletter, it was easy to decide that we had to report on a recent violent ICE arrest here in Jackson Heights. And then focus on the ugly consequences for New York’s health care system because of the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians.  

For a deeper and wider dive into news about, for, and by immigrants, please keep the NYC-based online news outlet Documented on your ‘must read’ list. They do an extraordinary job keeping us informed and promoting an immigrant-centered and social justice lens.

Finally, to supplement our story about Haitians losing TPS status, see this report on how one senior living center in California is already being affected by the forced exodus of Haitian health care workers.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. ICE unleashed in Jackson Heights
  2. Threats to Haitians and the NY health care system

 

1. How ICE Is Coming To Our Streets—Again.  

“We are horrified by federal immigration enforcement operations that deliberately infringe upon First Amendment rights to assemble and dissent. The use of intimidation, surveillance, and deadly force against lawful protestors is not public safety—it is repression.” —Statement from the League of Women Voters on Federal Immigration Enforcement and the Erosion of Constitutional Rights, January 2026

Five blocks away from the Jackson Heights Shopping Center on 31st Avenue, a woman walked. Protected from the rain by an umbrella. She noticed two ICE agents grabbing the arms of a man on the street about 20 feet in front of her. She crossed the road to avoid walking directly past them. The agents had tactical vests with POLICE ICE patches velcroed on the front and back. They carried holstered guns. Handcuffs dangled from their belts. One was illegally masked with a neck gaiter covering his mouth and secured over his ears by his own black baseball cap: its brim was angled low, allowing only the strip of his face with his eyes to be seen. The other agent was unmasked. The man was not struggling. The masked agent forcefully grabbed the man’s wrists; the man’s body twisted in reaction, and he struggled to maintain balance. There was no threat in his struggle. The agents’ lives were not in peril. Yet the unmasked agent chose to raise his left arm nonchalantly, without any urgency or need to defend himself, and aimed a taser inches from the man’s chest: violating recommended considerations for taser deployment by law enforcement. His verbal direction while pointing the taser was minimal and vague: “Cut the shit.” The two agents walked the man to a Black Hyundai Palisade SUV, LZW 7506. Nothing more is seen of them. This was July 9th in Jackson Heights.

Using the SALUTE reporting method, this 90-second encounter would be reported as:

S: 2
A: Arrested a man
L: 81st Street and 31st Avenue
U: ICE
T: 5:14 pm
E: Tan ICE vests, masked, taser

The only reason we even have this information is because a Rapid Response (RR) group member was walking the streets, paying attention to and legally documenting the actions of ICE agents. After the man was taken away, an RR team located a family connection for the man. Because of that volunteer work, the family would now know what happened to him. (The same RR team is currently searching to locate a family contact for someone else recently taken from 108th Street at 45th Avenue.) Since the federal government is not informing people when they move ICE detainees, how else would this information be discovered? 

The critical work for any RR action is to establish communication with the person being targeted. Let them know you’re there to help them, ask them for a phone number of a family member or contact that you can call to tell what has happened to them, or any information to help know more about them. The faster an ID can be made, the faster legal support can be gathered. 

The June 2026 budget reconciliation bill that ended the US government shutdown and funded Homeland Security for three more years “did not include basic guardrails like required oversight for detention, transparency measures requiring ICE to provide basic detention data to the public, and some basic civil rights protections in immigration enforcement.” It also gave $350 million for ICE to carry out enforcement actions in cities or states DHS decides are “non-cooperating” with Trump’s mass deportation agenda. It allows people to be taken by ICE if they were arrested for minor offenses, and ICE can also take someone if they were ever charged with the federal offense of unauthorized entry, even if charges were later dropped.

When Markwayne Mullin replaced Kristy Noem as DHS secretary, he said his key goal was to not be the lead story every single day. Yet, his team continues to murder people publicly and blame the victims with impunity. Mullin’s public response when asked how his agents would be held accountable was to say DHS will “turn up the heat on the streets”. The FBI has recently announced it will no longer take the lead on “assault on a federal officer” cases involving ICE and other Department of Homeland Security agents. Instead, Homeland Security Investigations will be responsible. Since the start of the second Trump presidency, no officers have been charged in any of the 9 killings by agents, and the federal government has suggested state prosecutors don’t have jurisdiction to investigate federal officers.

In summary: we can expect more on-the-street ICE activities and will see no change in tactics regarding overtly harsh enforcement techniques of non-criminal immigrants. We can anticipate more murders of anyone in proximity to ICE activities, and no independent agency will hold accountable the agents who kill. We will continue to see an increase in protesters being charged falsely with the once-obscure 18 U.S.C. 111 statute, which makes it a federal crime to assault or forcibly impede a government officer. We therefore need more people mobilized in Rapid Response groups to stand up for the disappeared as well as for our constitutional rights.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Participate in neighborhood walks for a Rapid Response group in these key areas:
    • 1-2 block radius of any 7 train stop in the area (Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Corona)
    • Most of Corona south of Northern Blvd. to just south of Corona Ave.
    • All along 111th, 108th streets
    • 1-2 block radius of the Ideal Supermarket by Corona Ave at 102nd street
    • Along 45th Ave., the LIRR underpass
    • Eastern side of Jackson Heights closer to Corona 
    • North of Northern Blvd. along 31st/32nd Aves.
    • Staging sites: FMCP parking lots, QCM parking lots, parking lots along Northern Blvd./Queens Blvd. 
  • Do what you can to help the Legal Defense Fund achieve their “6 Steps to End ICE and Other Federal Law Enforcement Abuses in Our Streets” 
  • Support efforts to enforce gambling laws against prediction markets which profit from their speculations on ICE arrests.

2. Loss of TPS for Haitians Endangers New York’s Healthcare System

“During COVID, we knew we were exposed. We knew we could be the next one, but guess what? We showed up every day. Some of us lived in the hospital for months. And this is how we are being repaid.” —Dr. Marie Paul, founder of Haitian Nurses Network

In November 2025, then Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem declared that Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Haitians would end on February 3, 2026, but on February 2, a US District Court for the District of Columbia put a stay on that decision. On June 25, the Supreme Court removed the stay, permitting the administration to remove TPS for Haitians and Syrians. The decision put 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians in danger of deportation. The decision disregarded the continuing chaos in Haiti. It also invites turbulence in New York State’s health care system where thousands of Haitians currently work. 

The court decision was not effective immediately. A 32-day delay is required before actions can take place, so on July 10, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the current work permit expiration date for Haitians with TPS is July 24, 2026. The state has about 56,000 Haitian residents; the city has around 5,400. The most obvious consequences of the court’s decision are the total disruption of Haitian families’ lives and well-being as well as their inability to send money to relatives in their country of origin. Another serious consequence is economic damage. Nationwide, Haitian TPS holders contribute $5.9 billion to the US economy, including $1.1 billion to New York state and $281 million in federal, state and local taxes.

Additionally, the health care industry will be severely disrupted. Thousands of Haitians provide essential care as nurses and nursing assistants across New York’s hospitals, as home health aides to the elderly, and as caregivers in long-term care facilities. All their patients and clients will be severely affected if Haitians are unable to continue working.

According to an amicus brief filed in April by Letitia James and 18 other state attorneys general, there are tens of thousands of Haitian TPS holders nationwide who work in critical services including health care. The American Immigration Council states that 112,000 Haitians work nationwide in health care, including 58,000 home health aides.

The policy group FWD.us estimates there are 25,000 Haitian TPS holders working in New York state, including 5,000 caregivers and 2,000 nursing assistants who, along with other workers, contribute $141 million annually in state and local taxes.

It is well-known that there is a nursing shortage in New York City, and the loss of these TPS holders will only increase the problem.

“Even with the current numbers that they have, including TPS workers, there is still a nursing shortage. Removing even a small percentage of these people will further impact our ability to provide quality care. There is no replacement pipeline. That’s why I’m losing sleep. My concern is, what happens to patients?” —Dr. Cherlie Magny-Normilus, a family nurse practitioner and assistant professor of nursing at New York University

There are efforts in Congress to alter these consequences. In April, the House passed a bill with bipartisan support to extend TPS protection for Haitians for three years. After the Supreme Court ruling, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed presented Senate bill S.4814 to extend TPS for Haitians, and on July 6 Representative Mike Lawler (NY-17), a strong advocate for Haitians in his district, urged the Senate to take up the bill.

In the meantime, some families threatened with deportation may stop going to work, avoid school or public spaces, or withdraw from daily life because of ICE fears. For TPS holders, the main option now is to check for any other form of immigration relief and to start concrete planning in case TPS ends.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

 

JHISN Newsletter 04/25/2026

Posted on April 25, 2026 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

Remain vigilant? Breathe a temporary sigh of relief? The mass targeting of immigrants for deportation in central Queens has not yet materialized. We share recent wisdom from Queens Neighborhoods United: “[W]e can’t always live in fear that ICE is around, and we can’t pretend that ICE is never around. Finding a balance and arming ourselves with information to inform our day-to-day lives is important.” Find a balance; stay informed; build and hold our collective strength.

Yet, every day, police violence against immigrants continues, and our first article highlights the pursuit of justice for two Queens families shattered by NYPD shootings in their homes.

Our second article dives into the mess of government propaganda, misinformation, missing data, and realistic “best estimates” of the number of immigrants in the US who have been recently detained and/or deported. Who really counts in US society? All those whose lives have been upended by a revved-up mass detention and deportation machine deserve to be counted.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Where is justice for two Queens families shattered by NYPD violence?
  2. Checking the numbers on US detentions and deportations

1. Justice for Win Rozario and Jabez Chakraborty!

On March 27, 2024, struggling with a mental health crisis in his Ozone Park home, 19-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant Win Rozario called 911 for help. What showed up was two aggressive cops, who provoked, tased, and gunned him down without mercy in front of his family.

“After shooting Win, the NYPD forced Win’s mom and brother to go to the precinct immediately, refusing to let them accompany Win to the hospital. Win’s mother and brother were separated and interrogated without lawyers and before being notified that Win had died. The NYPD then refused to let the Rozario family back into their apartment for over 48 hours, refusing to let them retrieve critical medications or even feed their cat. It took the advocacy of the Public Advocate to get the Rozario family back into their home – which the police had neglected to clean up after murdering Win.” —The Justice Committee

In September 2025, NYC’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) found that Officers Matthew Cianfrocco and Salvatore Alongi used excessive force and abused their authority. But so far, they have not faced any consequences. State Attorney General Letitia James refused to prosecute the cops, a decision the family called “cowardly.” Potential disciplinary action is now at the discretion of New York Police Commissioner Tisch, who is considered likely to order the loss of some vacation days—or no punishment at all. Only Mayor Mamdani can overrule whatever she decides.

This April 1, the Rozario family and local immigrant justice group Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) led a demonstration at Diversity Plaza, solemnly marking the second anniversary of Win’s murder and calling on the city to fire Cianfrocco and Alongi:

“Win’s mother shared her experiences and demands: ‘I can’t believe two years have passed and still the police have not been punished… I want to say that police should not be sent to respond to situations involving illness or mental health crises. Otherwise, more families like mine will be forced to live with this emptiness and grief.’” —@DRUMNYC

The Diversity Plaza protest also mobilized support for another Queens immigrant family brutalized in a similar way by the NYPD. Jabez Chakraborty, 22, who lives with schizophrenia, was shot by cops in a January 2026 confrontation that his family insists was completely unnecessary.

“We are shocked and outraged by the NYPD’s treatment of our son and brother, Jabez Chakraborty, and our family. We called for help. We called 911 for an ambulance to provide medical attention for our son, who was in emotional distress. We did not call the police. Instead of medical responders, the NYPD arrived and shot our son multiple times right in front of us.” —Chakraborty family, 1/30/26

Although he was severely wounded, Jabez Chakraborty survived. But District Attorney Melinda Katz rushed to arraign him on assault and weapons charges as he lay chained to his hospital bed—ignoring objections from Mayor Mamdani.

“What purpose does it serve to punish someone who needed medical and mental health care, and got bullets instead? This shooting was not an isolated incident: it’s a devastating example of how our systems repeatedly fail the most vulnerable New Yorkers.” —Fahd Ahmed, Executive Director of DRUM

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. The Reality Behind Detention & Deportation Propaganda Numbers

“We know of no reliable count of the total number of deportations during the first year of the Trump administration.” — Deportation Data Project (January 2026)

Those managing the anti-immigrant agenda of Trump and his hatemongering Homeland Security advisor, Stephen Miller, regularly obfuscate their arrest, detention, or deportation numbers. Such transparency problems are not new. Before Trump took office in 2024, the American Immigration Council (AIC) published Transparency Recommendations identifying numerous legally mandated reporting requirements that ICE failed to fulfill. The AIC reported that ICE, under Biden, was “severely undercounting the number of people it has in immigration detention.” In July of last year, Robert Garcia, a representative on the House Committee on Homeland Security, stated, “I actually just don’t trust numbers the administration is putting out, and I don’t think the American public should.” Thankfully, the diligent work of non-profits and university researchers does serve as a lighthouse in the fog.   

The number of people processed through the deportation machine is obscured by the administration’s hyperbolic statements. Only through the independent work of organizations, reporters, and pro bono lawyers, who process Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to delve into Homeland Security data, can we get a sense of how many people are actually being processed through the deportation machine.

In March of last year, TRAC Reports won a major FOIA case against ICE and CPB when a court rejected all the government’s arguments for withholding records. In November 2025, TRAC released a report about detention and removals after the massive deployments of military and civil immigration enforcers: “The data show surprisingly little has been accomplished given the huge expenditure of resources devoted to this effort.” The increase in ICE removals under Trump in 2025 was reportedly only 7% higher than the 2024-25 numbers under Biden.

Before Trump’s second inauguration, data on border arrests, deportations, and other immigration metrics were published twice a month (as mandated by the DHS funding bill). An April 2026 visit to the DHS website finds that the immigration websites have not been updated since 2024. ICE Detention and Repatriation data has also not been updated since 2024. The 2025 numbers reported by Homeland Security on its detention management site are severely limited. Even a high school student’s online ICE Tracker project is making a better attempt than Homeland Security to share this data publicly.

While TRAC Reports highlighted the many data errors in ICE data releases, the Vera Institute of Justice reported that the “failure [of ICE] to regularly release accurate, complete, and accessible data is part of what enables it to operate this multi-billion-dollar network with little oversight or accountability.” With the support of the Deportation Data Project, the Vera Institute published its December 2025 report on ICE Detention Trends in 1,464 facilities. If the ICE reports from August of last year are accurate, then the 61,226 people detained by ICE is the highest ever level of detention. 

“First, ICE arrests quadrupled, including both street arrests and transfers from criminal custody to ICE immigration custody. ICE street arrests (i.e. arrests not at jails) went up by over a factor of eleven. Street arrests at this order of magnitude are a new phenomenon. For both types of arrests, ICE was much less likely to target people with criminal convictions. These changes led to over a sevenfold increase in arrests of people without criminal convictions.”—Deportation Data Project


Transfers from Jails and Prisons Doubled and Street Arrests Increased by 11x—Deportation Data Project

The self-deportation component of the Miller-Trump strategy, despite a significant increase in numbers, failed spectacularly to deliver its promise as a cost-effective way to remove immigrants rapidly. Last September, DHS posted self-aggrandizing statements, and Kristi Noem talked about self-deportation numbers, which came from an estimate by the anti-immigrant think tank CIS that did not even use DHS data. 

Homeland Security spent $200M on ads (created by agencies with direct ties to DHS staff) to urge self-deportation through the incongruously named Project Homecoming. The “voluntary” project claims to offer applicants a free plane ticket and a stipend of $1,000, recently increased to $2,600. Data review confirmed around 25,000 people registered for self-deportation on the CBP mobile app. Only half of those actually returned home with DHS support. The others face delays in paperwork processing, have not received payments, and still await their flights home. Immigration attorneys indicate their lack of trust in the program. In reality, only a minority of immigrants are eligible for those incentives to leave: those who do not meet the requirements are simply handing over their information and risking detention. 


Voluntary Departures Increased by 28x—Deportation Data Project

Although the government’s Project Homecoming data is questionable, reliable data shows that the number of court cases ending in “voluntary departure” increased to 35,000—over three times those during the previous year. Looking at New York specifically, under Biden, less than 1% of people arrested by ICE opted for voluntary departure—today it is 22%. People are also deciding to self-deport without government intervention—but even at the point where they are boarding flights to return home, they are still being detained and handed over to ICE agents.

The end goal of this administration is really not just about deportation. It is about enabling white nationalism and authoritarianism through racial profiling, eroding constitutional rights, scapegoating and subjugating immigrants, and weaponizing a massive private, for-profit prison system. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN.